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New Hope in Pacific Northwest

By Jack Bell March 2, 2009 5:33 pmMarch 2, 2009 5:33 pm

Like every soccer-playing youngster in France, Sébastien Le Toux dreamed of growing up to score goals like Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka. But at the first stop on his professional career, Le Toux was shuttled to the back line — a creative player transformed into a destroyer.

“I was 18 playing in the reserve team of Rennes and the coach asked me to play right defender,” Le Toux, 25, said in a telephone interview before he left for preseason training in Argentina with Seattle Sounders F.C., a Major League Soccer expansion team. “When you are young, you just keep the dream to be a pro player and to do things that may not make you happy, but you are happy to play.”

Update

After five seasons bouncing around in France, Le Toux (pronounced le TOO) came to the United States and tried out in Dallas. Not latching on there, he signed with the Sounders of the United Soccer Leagues First Division, where he was the league’s most valuable player in 2007. And remember that guy playing defense? Up in the Pacific Northwest, the lithe 6-foot-1 Le Toux found himself where he always wanted to be — scoring goals, 24 in 54 games, and that includes 14 last season when he played on loan to the second-tier Sounders.

When Seattle was awarded an M.L.S. team, Le Toux was the first player the club signed. Since then, Seattle has added the veteran American goalkeeper Kasey Keller and the Swedish star Freddie Ljungberg as its designated player. So far in the preseason, Seattle Coach Sigi Schmid, who led Columbus to the M.L.S. title last season, has been using Le Toux as an outside midfielder.

“He is just tremendous athletically,” said Brian Schmetzer, now the Sounders assistant, but the head coach for the U.S.L. club. “He can run all day. When I first had him in camp he said he was a defender. But he was so gifted we moved him up to holding midfield, where his personality was a little better. But sometimes he would just head up the field on attack because he wanted to run more. We didn’t want to hold him back, so we made him a forward.”
Le Toux and the Sounders will open their inaugural M.L.S. season March 19 against the Red Bulls. The club, which took the name of the city’s team in the North American Soccer League after it won in online balloting among fans as a write-in candidate, has already sold 20,000 season tickets at Qwest Field. That is 6,000 more than Seattle’s baseball team, the Mariners.

Le Toux said he now felt that Seattle, and the United States, was home.

“I love Seattle and all the people here,” he said. “I am in a dream.”

Perhaps a peculiar part of that dream was last year when Le Toux declared himself available for selection to the United States national team, never mind not being a citizen.

Asked why, at times, there seems to be so much ill will between the French and Americans, Le Toux said: “People in France don’t really know that the U.S. is a huge country and only know what they see on TV, in the movies. New York is the Big Apple and Wall Street. Dallas for the cowboy and Bush. Las Vegas, light. But I have discovered myself here, and it has made a huge difference. I love France, but you Americans are more adventurous in everything.”

Le Toux has some ambitious expectations for the season, personally and for the team. Seattle seems abuzz with expectation as the inaugural season approaches. The club has impressive backing, a consortium that includes the Hollywood film mogul Joe Roth, the actor and comedian Drew Carey, the Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and the businessman Adrian Hanauer.

The group is hoping to restart the region’s love of the professional game that died when the N.A.S.L. did in the mid-1980s. The original Sounders were founded in 1974 and folded after the 1983 season, but in that time had a passionate base of fans who traipsed to the awful Kingdome for games. The team lost two Soccer Bowl championship games to the Cosmos, in 1977 and 1982.

“For me, I just hope to be a starter, to win my place on the team,” Le Toux said. “There are lots of good players, and you want to show to the coach every day and week that you can play. It’s our first year, we don’t know what to expect in M.L.S. We’re just going to discover week after week, learn and hope to win a lot of games.”

great article. and as a life-long sounders fan, the excitement over this team isn’t blind. we all know it’s an expansion team. if we sniff the playoffs, let alone get in, the city would just erupt. because you have to keep in mind that everything the owners are doing are working; they’re goal to sell the team to the buying public couldn’t have gone better; and most importantly, they’ve admitted their mistakes and honored some history. and also…remember 2008? seahawks miss playoffs after 4 straight division titles. mariners lose 101 games but spend $110 million. sonics…MOVED TO OKLAHOMA! uw/wsu football was a combined 2-21. so just to have something to cheer for is already worth it.

Had the pleasure of watching LeToux when the Sounders played their arch-rivals Vancouver. Hopefully the Whitecaps will soon join MLS and this storied rivalry will continue. MLS will only benefit from these two cities in their league.

Nice article. This is the organic way that soccer is going to be successful here. A true fan base, a team that sort of came up from lower divisions. You can almost feel how a promotion/drop scheme with the First Division could work here, despite what everyone says. I also just wish the Sounders would go back to their old NASL shirts: //www.oldfootballshirts.com/img/season_shirts/football_shirt_2328_1.jpg The new one is horrible.

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